FOR MARIN FILMMAKER Brenda Chapman, the best part of winning the animated feature Oscar for co-directing Pixar's "Brave" was being able to stand on the Dolby Theatre stage in Hollywood on Sunday night and proudly tell the world that her 13-year-old daughter Emma, an eighth-grader at Mill Valley Middle School, was the inspiration for Merida, the movie's headstrong young Scottish heroine.

"That was a big dream come true," she said in a phone interview this week from her office at Lucasfilm in the Presidio. "It was really fantastic."

At the insistence of her husband, director Kevin Lima ("Enchanted," "102 Dalmatians"), Chapman made the glamorous awards show a special mother-daughter night out.

"It was really awesome seeing Emma's reaction, her instant excitement, when they announced that we had won," she said. "It took all my nervousness away."

The 50-year-old Chapman has been responsible for a trio of firsts for a woman director. In 1998, she became the first woman to land a directing role in an animated feature for a major studio when she was one in a team of three directors on DreamWorks' "The Prince of Egypt."

When she was handed the helm of "Brave," she became Pixar's first female director. And now she's the first woman to win the Academy Award for best animated feature.

After graduating with a degree in character animation from the California Institute of the Arts, where she met her husband, Chapman hadn't set out to crack any glass ceilings in the male-dominated animated film industry.

"I just happened to be that woman, but it wasn't a goal of mine to break into the boys' club," she remarked. "I just love to draw and cartoon, so it seemed like a natural place for me to go. It's only been over the years, especially after such a big deal was made of me being the first woman director at Pixar, that I realized that I had sort of blazed this path. There are a lot of women behind me doing some great things. I would hope they would have followed that path anyway, but if I made that path wider for them, then I feel happy about that."

In 2003, Chapman and her young family moved to Mill Valley from Southern California when she was hired by Pixar to bring some feminine sensibility to their movie "Cars." Not long after, as she faced the challenges of parenting a little girl with a mind of her own, she began to develop the girl-power story line for "Brave" and to conceive of the headstrong, red-haired Scottish princess at the heart of the medieval tale.

"I started thinking about writing it when my daughter was almost 5," she recalled. "Whenever I'd tell her to do something, it was always questioned. She was so strong-willed, challenging me every step of the way. Honestly, I never did that to my mom. It was old school in my house growing up. But my daughter took over my life. I'd be going to work thinking about the morning I had with her. It evolved into channeling that energy into creating something positive around it."

With "Brave," Chapman wanted to write a contemporary fairy tale that today's working mothers and their daughters could relate to.

"Even though I still love 'Cinderella' and 'Sleeping Beauty,' I was tired of always having to have the prince come along and complete the princess's life," she explained. "It's a lie to tell kids that you have to have that knight in shining armor who comes along and solves all their problems. I really wanted to turn that idea on its head. My princess is who she is and deals with her life."

While its reviews were mixed, "Brave" grossed more than $550 million worldwide and won the Golden Globe, the Bafta from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and now the Oscar in one of the most competitive races at this year's Academy Awards.

"The word in town was that 'Wreck-It Ralph' was going to win," she said. "So we didn't expect it."

Winning the Academy Award is the happy ending to the bittersweet story of Chapman and "Brave." With about 18 months to go before the movie's release date, she was replaced as director by Mark Andrews, who accepted his Oscar wearing a kilt.

"I was forcibly removed from the picture for what I have to say were creative differences," she said. "It was really difficult to lose that connection with a crew that was so dedicated to the film and so dedicated to my vision. In the end, for the most part, my vision came through. But I really wanted to celebrate with everyone who worked so hard on the film and I really haven't been able to do that other than through phone calls, emails and a few lunches. I wasn't able to go into Pixar and give them a toast. So I came into Lucasfilm and had a lovely toast here."

Changing horses in midsteam is not uncommon in Pixar history. It's happened when the powers that be feel the story's not working and time is running out.

"And sometimes that means a director change, which is exactly what happened," Andrews explained in an Indiewire article. "So I came on board and kind of treated it as an adaptation."

Chapman is now working as a story consultant for Lucasfilm and will soon go to work for a DreamWorks branch in Redwood City, developing some original concepts and other projects for future animated features.

Winning the Oscar has taken some of the sting out of the hurt she felt when she was forced to hand over the reins to "Brave," a movie that had been her baby. And she's considering the possibility of directing again someday.

"What's nice is that this is a really lovely ending to a really difficult time," she said. "I feel like I've been acknowledged by my peers and by the industry, and that despite it all, they recognize this vision came from me. Whatever bad feelings I had are behind me now. I'm moving on. And I can look back at it now with pride and contentment."